SPIRITUAL COMBAT REVISITED

by Father Jonathan Robinson Ignatius Press, 2003 305 pages, $14.95

To order: (800) 651-1531 www.ignatius.com

Asceticism. Does this word conjure up an image in your mind of a hermit retreating to the desert, wearing a hair shirt and doing penance with a medieval flagellant?

If so, your spiritual imagination is cramped. The word comes from the Greek askesis, which means practice, bodily exercise and athletic training. Though Christian asceticism is often associated with external austerity—including radical fasting and other rigorous physical mortifications—this is, in fact, only a small part of the story. The various modes of asceticism are, properly understood, means to help the Christian become more like Christ. Of course, a part of this is helping us fight against our natural inclinations and tendencies to sin.

Spiritual Combat Revisited by Father Jonathan Robinson, founder of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Toronto, is an in-depth, contemporary analysis of one of the classics of ascetical theology: The Spiritual Combat by Lorenzo Scupoli (1530-1610), a work that St. Francis de Sales referred to as key to his spiritual development.

Why does this dusty old classic need to be revisited? Because, in theory as well as practice, asceticism is today neither well-known nor fully appreciated. Especially in the years following the Second Vatican Council, the practice of asceticism has been subject to rather severe criticism. It was determined that far too much emphasis had been placed on cultivating personal virtues and taming personal vices, all at the expense of charity toward one's neighbor.

Father Robinson contends that we have thrown the proverbial baby out with the bath water. There can be no true holiness without “renunciation and spiritual battle” (Catechism, No. 2015). The priest explains that spiritual battle is inevitable if we are to follow Christ, and the ascetical life is critical to growth in holiness. One cannot truly love Christ if one is not willing to take up one's own cross every day. Just as an athlete will lose his competitive edge if he does not subject his body to the rigors of training, so too the Christian who does not make a sincere effort to grow in virtue may lose his ability to follow Christ.

“The ascetical dimension of Christianity is deeply rooted in the Bible, even though some of its practices antedate Christianity itself,” writes Father Robinson. “It is St. Paul who tells us that the Christian life is to be compared to an athletic contest and that we have to go into training if we are to be successful. But the contest we are concerned with is not a game; it is a real battle against everything that will pull the Christian soldier away from God.”

In other words, it is not enough to say we love God. We must attempt to reform our lives so that we become virtuous enough to persevere in following Christ, which is never easy. Hence the real need to face up to spiritual combat, to fight against those aspects of ourselves that are not yet fully conformed to Christ.

Father Robinson looks to Lorenzo Scupoli, a master of spiritual combat, to discover specific aids in the spiritual life—weapons we can use in our spiritual battle. Humility (and self-distrust), the practice of the virtue of hope, the spiritual exercises (efforts made to root out vices and build up virtue) and the practice of prayer: proven weapons that demand space in every spiritual warrior's arsenal.

Laraine Etchemendy Bennett writes from Vienna, Virginia.